Delilah's Weakness (23 page)

After a long tense pause of furious dagger–stares and rapid breathing, Luke closed his eyes and sighed. Then, as if in surrender, he ducked his head and kissed her. She gave a small, shocked whimper, and then, with a distraught moan, ran up her own white flag.

Her body felt hot and hollow. He poured himself into her—his passion, his frustration, his hunger—and she drank from him as if she would never get enough. She wasn’t entirely sure what it all meant, but for now she decided she didn’t care. This was enough. He was here, and he was kissing her as if the world would end tomorrow.

Behind them the nurse coughed, and said brightly, "Well, here we are. All ready to go?"

Luke took his time, releasing Delilah’s mouth by slow, reluctant degrees. Still holding her with the tractor beam of his eyes he murmured, "Yeah, we’re ready. We’re going home." He gathered Delilah up and, ignoring the nurse’s dithering, lowered her carefully into the wheelchair and adjusted the support under her injured leg.

The nurse fussed helplessly. "Wait—sir—you can’t—hospital regulations—"

Luke waved her away and took the handles of the chair firmly in his own hands.

** ** **

It was an absurdly idyllic April day. The apple trees were in full bloom, bees were buzzing, the pasture was showing new green, and across its length and breadth a flock of charcoal–gray lambs gamboled and played, reveling in the spring sunshine. Delilah could almost hear background music—flutes, of course—playing the
Pastorale
from the William Tell Overture.

Delilah was sitting in the orchard, with her leg propped on some bags of wool left from last year’s shearing. Lady was asleep, her muzzle propped on Delilah’s leg. Apple blossoms sifted lazily down all over everything, like snowflakes.

Delilah was preparing to warp her loom. She considered warping a loom the most exciting part of weaving. It was an almost mystical process—the birth, the conception, of a new project. It required a long, unbroken period of solitude—although she’d never had to worry about that before Luke had come into her life.

But Luke had promised her this day. He’d set up her large outdoor loom in the orchard, while he, with the part–time help of some local high–school Ag students, took care of the sheep. The judge had left before breakfast this morning to make the long drive back to Sacramento, and Luke had sworn a solemn oath not to disturb her unless she needed him. He’d even hung a sheep bell on a branch within easy reach, so she could call him. Luke thought of everything.

Delilah sat with her supplies spread out around her and her hands idle in her lap, gazing through the frame of her loom at the frolicking lambs. It was one of her favorite sights. A good crop. A beautiful crop. She should be proud, and happy.

Instead she was depressed. It didn’t feel like her place anymore. Though she knew it was irrational and ungrateful of her, she felt displaced, usurped, a guest in her own home. Luke was in charge.

She still wasn’t exactly sure why he kept staying around. Guilt, probably. A sense of responsibility. Undoubtedly he felt at least partly to blame for her accident. She’d thought it didn’t matter why. She loved him, and it was enough that he was here. Now it seemed she might have to choose between love and sanity. Luke was driving her crazy.

The front door slammed. Voices drifted up to her on the soft air, coming unmistakably closer. Lady jumped up and went to investigate. Delilah looked around in exasperation.
He promised.

He was coming through the orchard, his arm around a slender young woman with soft, honey–blond hair. As the woman turned to smile up at him, the breeze blew a strand of hair across her upper lip. Luke lifted his hand and carefully tucked the errant lock behind her ear. To Delilah, that gesture was Luke—solicitous, protective, possessive… smothering.

She knew who the visitor had to be, of course, and was already smiling a sincere welcome. Luke held out his arms in a gesture of abject apology and said, "‘Lilah, I know I promised, but Glenna has to go on to Tahoe, and—"

"It’s all right," Delilah said, laughing. "This must be your sister. What a nice surprise!"

"You’re not kidding," Luke said, beaming happily at them both.

"I hope you don’t mind my just coming like this. I finally gave up hope of ever hearing from Luke, and decided to track him down. He’s been avoiding me, I think. "

"See?" Luke muttered in an aside to Delilah. "What did I tell you?"

Glenna gave Luke’s waist a squeeze, forgiving him the private joke at her expense. "I’ll bet he didn’t tell you he was on his way to my wedding when he crashed, did he? He was supposed to give me away. Some people will do anything to avoid a wedding." She punched him gently in the stomach. "I just had to come see for myself that he was okay, the rat. I really didn’t expect to find you injured instead. I won’t stay long, I promise."

"It’s okay, really," Delilah said quickly. "I decided I’m not really in the mood to do this today, anyway."

"Oh—you’re going to start something! A rug? Or a saddle blanket? I’ve never seen the Navajo warping process before. I’d love to watch, if you’d let me." Glenna was wearing a crisp white linen skirt, and she carefully tucked it under her bottom as she squatted on her heels in the dirt beside Delilah.

Delilah stared at her. "Do you know weaving?"

"Oh––" Glenna made a gesture of self–deprecation. "I’ve had a class or two. But I love it. Someday I’d like to learn a lot more—how to dye my own yarns, spin, all that stuff. But Navajo weaving, that’s… This is just fantastic. I saw some of the things you have in your house, but I never dreamed that you—Luke never told me!"

"I haven’t had a chance," Luke pointed out mildly, "to tell you much of anything."

"Delilah," Glenna said earnestly, touching the rough frame of the loom with reverent fingertips, "do you have any idea what this is worth? I mean, there are people in my weaving classes who would have killed for a chance to learn real Navajo weaving techniques. And you have the fleeces and everything, right here. And of course the finished rugs—Good Lord, they’re worth their weight in gold. Did you know that—"

"Whoa!" Luke interrupted, laughing. "Glenna’s off and running. I see Josh is here to help me lay that water line to the barn. I’ll leave you two to get acquainted while I get him started."

"Go, go," Glenna urged, shooing him away. "We will survive without you, although I realize that’s hard for you to believe." As he grinned and walked away, she turned back to Delilah. "Seriously, Delilah, you could really turn this weaving of yours into money––if you wanted to. I don’t know how reliable the sheep business is, but if you ever needed extra cash…" She shrugged and stood up, brushing down her skirt and looking around her.

"I’ll keep it in mind," Delilah said faintly, feeling slightly winded. Goodness, was the whole family like this? Hell–bent on solving everyone’s problems?

A little silence fell, the slight awkwardness of two strangers finding themselves suddenly alone. Glenna took a few steps toward the pasture, ducking her head under a low–hanging branch frothy with apple blossoms.

"It’s really lovely here," she said, and after a moment added, "Is that where it happened, over in that field? Is that where Luke crashed?"

"You mean, as he calls it, ‘made a perfect emergency landing’?" Delilah said dryly. "Yes."

The plane was gone now. It had disappeared while she was still in the hospital. She hadn’t asked, and Luke hadn’t told her, just how he’d removed it from the pasture.

Glenna rubbed her arms and shuddered. "When I think what would have happened… If he hadn’t been able to…" She turned, the anguish of contemplated tragedy etched on her face. "I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to Luke."

"I guess you must be very close," Delilah said softly.

"Close!" Glenna threw her a surprised look. "Didn’t he tell you? Luke raised me."

"No. He didn’t tell me."

"Oh, Lord, yes. Luke isn’t just my brother—he’s the only mother I can remember." Glenna was looking around for a place to sit. Delilah pulled a bag of wool from under her leg and tossed it to her.

"Here, have a seat," she said in the offhand manner of an old friend.

Glenna threw her a quick smile that was very like her brother’s, and settled herself, tucking her long, slender legs under her and modestly arranging her skirt.

"Our mother died when I was just a baby—about a year old. Luke would have been…let’s see, twelve, I guess." She made a face. "Do you know any twelve–year–old boys?" Delilah shook her head. "Well, let me tell you, most of them are just awful. But here was Luke, with a father who was gone most of the time and this little baby sister to take care of. When I was really little we had housekeepers, but Luke was the one who truly took care of me. I mean, he dressed me, fixed my hair, fed me, read to me—"

"Nursery rhymes." Delilah said suddenly.

Glenna looked startled. "Well, yeah. Of course."

"Of course," Delilah murmured, closing her eyes. There was a lump in her throat and a shaky feeling in her chest.

"What is it?" Glenna asked in alarm. "Are you in pain?"

"No. I was just remembering…things." Things like Luke feeding her French toast and saying, "Tweet, tweet, here comes the mama bird…" Luke hanging her underthings on the line and being so bewildered by her anger. "I have a sister."

No wonder he knew all the nursery rhymes. No wonder he could cook. No wonder he looked so comfortable wearing a dish–towel apron. No wonder so very many things.

She was suddenly hungry to know more about the complicated, surprising man she’d fallen in love with. She was just beginning to realize how much there was to learn about the man she’d once thought shallow and superficial.

She prompted breathlessly, " How about when you got older? Luke must have gone away to school."

Glenna shook her head. "He had a scholarship offer from USC, but he turned it down. It would have meant leaving me. Instead he went to the University of Houston so he could live at home. We were living in Galveston then. Our dad was working on the offshore rigs. After he died—he was killed when a platform capsized during a hurricane—we moved to the Bay Area. That’s when Luke got in his graduate work at Stanford. By that time I was in high school and Luke was being both mother and father." She laughed, and, doubling her hands into fists, raised them above her head in a gesture of intense frustration. "He drove me crazy! He was worse than ten mothers and fathers. He has this huge sense of responsibility, I guess, and I was very rebellious, trying to be independent—Well, you can imagine."

"Yes," Delilah said with a crooked smile. "What happened? You don’t seem to have any differences now."

"Oh, sure, we do." Glenna made a face, then tilted her head thoughtfully. "What happened? Well, I guess, for one thing, I grew up. And then, I realized it was just his way of telling me he loved me. He never says it. But I felt it, you know? And that’s what’s important, don’t you think?" For a moment Glenna’s animated face was radiant, and touchingly young. She made another wry face, and laughed. "And then, I learned to tell him to knock it off when I got tired of feeling smothered. That helped a lot."

"You mean it works?" Delilah asked, laughing doubtfully.

"Sometimes—though how I ever learned to do anything for myself I don’t know. It’s a miracle."

"What’s a miracle?" Luke wanted to know, ducking under the trees, pausing to touch his sister’s hair in an offhand way.

"You," she told him serenely, exchanging looks with Delilah.

Delilah’s heart had dropped into her stomach. When Luke moved to her side, casually touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers, and asked, "Ready to go in? It’s about lunchtime," she found she couldn’t answer him. Her heart was too full for words. Full of new ideas and discoveries. Full of wonder. Full of love.

She was thinking that people have different ways of saying, "I love you," if you only listen. Her father had been saying it for years, but she’d heard him for the first time just a few days ago, in a hospital room.

Was that what Luke had been trying to tell her by doing things for her? Taking care of her? She hadn’t heard him. Hadn’t understood.

When he lifted her into his arms she put her own arms around his neck and looked into his eyes. Yes, it was there. He’d been saying it for weeks, and now at last she was hearing him, loud and clear. She couldn’t tell him yet, but she hoped he might see in her eyes the understanding and the forgiveness, the vow and the promise.

** ** **

Glenna had gone. She was driving on to Tahoe to meet her husband, John, who was in Reno at a convention. They were hoping to get in some end–of–the–season skiing.

For the first time since the accident, Luke was alone with Delilah.

He sat at the table, brooding, watching her over his coffee cup. He was remembering the morning he’d come home after his night in jail, the way he’d felt then…

A hell of a lot had happened since that morning. It would have been hard to tell her how he felt about her then. Now it seemed impossible.

Delilah was fingering the rug that covered the back of the sofa in a thoughtful sort of way. "Glenna says these are worth a lot of money. She says people would pay to learn Navajo weaving, too. I think I’ll look into it. Maybe I could teach on–line classes, or something. The sheep leave me a lot of time during certain months. You know, it could be the answer to my financial worries."

"Sounds like a good idea," Luke murmured, feeling unexpectedly depressed.

"I have a good crop of lambs," she went on, "but you never know what the market’s going to do. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah."

"I have you to thank, you know," she said softly.

"Me? What for?" That sure didn’t sound like Delilah.

"Well, I couldn’t possibly have done it without you, you must know that."

"Bull. You’d have made it one way or another. You’re strong." He got up abruptly, wondering why he felt like a dog with a sore paw. "You’re a fighter, ‘Lilah. A winner." He paced to the window and stood looking out across the hillside toward the pasture. "I think I probably made more trouble for you than I helped." She knew very well she didn’t need him, he thought. She was telling him so right now.